25 June, 2012

The Ticklish Kid

Pete Sparks was a sensitive boy.
So sensitive that even his hair was ticklish. You only had to touch his hair a
little bit and he would burst out laughing. And when this ticklish laughter
started, no one could make him stop.

So Pete grew up used to strange
situations. When his granny’s friends came to visit, he would always end up in
stitches because there was never any shortage of little old ladies rubbing his
head and saying “How cute!”

Windy days were the worst, with
Pete on the ground, paralyzed by laughter whenever the breeze blew on his
locks, which, incidentally, were pretty long because at the barber shop no one
could manage to cut his hair, due to the non-stop giggling. To see Pete laugh,
as well as being great fun, was terribly contagious. When Pete started feeling
ticklish, everyone ended up in endless laughter, and they had to just give up
whatever they were doing.

As Pete grew up, people started
to ban him from certain places. Some activities are serious business, and
cannot be done amid gales of laughter. So Pete tried everything to control his
ticklishness: he tried wearing a thousand different hats, he used ultra strong
hairsprays and gels, he shaved his head, and he even went on a yoga course to
see if he could bear the tickling by learning to relax himself.

But nothing worked; it was
impossible. He wanted, with all his heart, to just be a normal boy. So, as time
went on, he began to feel sad and ill-fated for being different.

This went on until, one day in the street, he met a special clown. The clown
was very old and could hardly walk, but when he saw Pete in tears, he went to
cheer him up. It didn’t take long to make Pete laugh, and they started to talk.
Pete told him about his ticklish problem, and he asked the clown how such an
old man could carry on being a clown.

“I have no one to replace me”,
said the clown, “and I have a very serious job to do”. Pete looked at him,
surprised, and thought “serious? A clown?”, trying to understand what the old
man had told him.

“Come, I’ll show you” said the
clown.

So the clown took Pete all over
the city, to many hospitals, shelters, refuges, schools… All were full of
children who were sick, or orphaned, children with very serious problems. But
as soon as they saw the clown, their faces changed completely and lit up with a
smile. Their short while spent with the clown changed everything for them, but
that day was even more special, because in every show Pete’s ticklishness would
inevitably make an appearance, and his contagious laughter would end up with the
kids laid on the floor, dying with laughter.

When the visit came to an end,
the old clown winked at Pete and said “Now do you see what a serious job it is?
That’s why I can’t retire, even at my age”.

“It’s true,” answered Pete,
smiling and returning the wink, “not everyone could do it, you have to have a
special gift for laughter. And that’s so hard to find”. This said, the wind
again set off his ticklishness and his laughter.

And that is how Pete became a
clown, and replaced the special old man. And from that day onward, the fact
that Pete was different actually made him happy, thanks to his special gift.

Everything which makes us
different makes us, at the same time, special, and there are always ways to
benefit from these gifts